Category Archives: Talks

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Last week in Ber­lin the 2015 Sam Adams Award for Integ­rity in Intel­li­gence was presen­ted to the former Tech­nical Dir­ector of the NSA, whis­tleblower and tire­less pri­vacy advoc­ate, Wil­liam Bin­ney.

A 36-year intel­li­gence agency vet­eran, Bill Bin­ney resigned from the NSA in 2001 and became a whis­tleblower after dis­cov­er­ing that ele­ments of a data-monitoring pro­gramme he had helped develop were being used to spy on Amer­ic­ans. He explained that he “could not stay after the NSA began pur­pose­fully viol­at­ing the Constitution”.

Bill remains tire­less, pledging to spend the remainder of his years speak­ing out across the world and work­ing to reform the gross gov­ern­mental illeg­al­ity and stu­pid­ity of inter­cept­ing tril­lions and tril­lions of com­mu­nic­a­tions of inno­cent people’s phone calls, emails and other forms of data. Bill states “it’s viol­ated everyone’s rights. It can be used to spy on the whole world.”

The Sam Adams Asso­ci­ates decided to hold the cere­mony in Ber­lin as it is cur­rently a global hub for privacy-minded indi­vidu­als — journ­al­ists, film-makers, tech­no­lo­gists, whis­tleblowers and campaigners.

His­tory has made Ger­many much more sens­it­ive to the need for basic rights, such as pri­vacy, than many other soi dis­ant west­ern demo­cra­cies, and the dis­clos­ures of Edward Snowden, includ­ing the col­lu­sion of Ger­man intel­li­gence agen­cies with the NSA as well as the bug­ging of Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, have caused out­rage across the country.

Plus, only last year Bill Bin­ney was invited to give evid­ence to the Ger­man Bundestag’s NSA Inquiry Commission.

Know all ye by these presents that Wil­liam Bin­ney is hereby honored with the tra­di­tional Sam Adams Corner-Brightener Can­dle­stick Holder, in sym­bolic recog­ni­tion of Mr. Binney’s cour­age in shin­ing light into dark places.

Bill Bin­ney rep­res­ents the pat­ri­otic side of a duel between two unequal adversar­ies: an exceed­ingly power­ful and ruth­less state and Bill, an offi­cial who would not break his sol­emn oath to defend its Con­sti­tu­tion. Like Tom Drake and Ed Snowden, he was determ­ined to pre­serve his integ­rity, his pri­vacy, and his per­sonal honor.

On both sides of the Atlantic we hear the man­tra: “After 9÷11÷2001 EVERYTHINGCHANGED;” just like “everything changed” after the burn­ing of the Reich­stag on 2÷27÷1933. That event led many Ger­mans into what the writer Sebastian Haffner called “sheep­ish sub­missive­ness” — with dis­astrous consequences.

As a young Ger­man law­yer in Ber­lin at the time, Haffner wrote in his diary one day after the Reich­stag fire that Ger­mans had suffered a nervous break­down. “No one saw any­thing out of the ordin­ary in the fact that, from now on, one’s tele­phone would be tapped, one’s let­ters opened, and one’s desk might be broken into.”

What was miss­ing, wrote Haffner, was “a solid inner ker­nel that can­not be shaken by external pres­sures and forces, some­thing noble and steely, a reserve of pride, prin­ciple, and dig­nity to be drawn on in the hour or trial.”

We are grate­ful that these traits were NOT miss­ing in Bill Bin­ney. Nor were they miss­ing in Edward Snowden, whose pat­ri­otic risk-taking opened the way for Bill and his col­leagues to expose the collect-it-all fan­at­ics and the dam­age they do to pri­vacy everywhere.

What Ed Snowden called “turn­key tyranny” can still be pre­ven­ted. But this can only hap­pen, if pat­ri­ots like Bill Bin­ney can jolt enough people out of “sheep­ish sub­missive­ness.” Goethe under­stood this 200 years ago when he warned, “No one is more a slave than he who thinks him­self free, but is not.”

Here is a short excerpt from a panel dis­cus­sion I took part in after the Lon­don première of the new cult anti-prohibition film, “The Cul­ture High”. This is an amaz­ing film that pulls together so many big issues around the failed global 50 year policy of the war on drugs. I ser­i­ously recom­mend watch­ing it.

I will be speak­ing at BM For­eign Affairs in Ber­lin on 24 Septem­ber at 19:00, about my assess­ment of the intel­li­gence activ­it­ies and inside chances. Some of the top­ics dur­ing this talk include:

The role of mod­ern intel­li­gence agencies?

What it’s like to blow the whistle and go on the run?

Over­sight and pro­por­tion­al­ity of intel­li­gence agen­cies within a democracy.

All these organ­isa­tions came together to hold an inter­na­tional con­fer­ence in sup­port of whis­tleblowers on 18th June in Amsterdam.

It was a cre­at­ive event, mix­ing up law­yers, journ­al­ists, tech­no­lo­gists and whis­tleblower sup­port net­works from around the world at an event with speeches and work­shops, in order for every­one to learn, share exper­i­ences, and develop new meth­od­o­lo­gies and best prac­tice to help cur­rent and future whistleblowers.

A stim­u­lat­ing and pro­duct­ive day, at which I did the open­ing keynote:

I recently had the pleas­ure of tak­ing part in a debate at the Oxford Union Soci­ety. I spoke to the pro­pos­i­tion that “this house believes Edward Snowden is a hero”, along with US journ­al­ist Chris Hedges, NSA whis­tleblower Bill Bin­ney, and former UK gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Chris Huhne.

The cham­ber was full and I am happy to report that we won the debate by 212 votes to 171, and that Oxford stu­dents do indeed see Edward Snowden as a hero. Here is my speech:

Last month I was on a panel dis­cus­sion at the Ber­lin Trans­me­diale con­fer­ence with NSA whis­tleblower Bill Bin­ney, Chelsea Man­ning rap­por­teur Alexa O’Brian, and act­iv­ist Diani Bar­reto. Here is the link to the full two hour event, and here is my speech:

Crypto­parties, where geeks offer their help for free to their com­munit­ies, were star­ted by pri­vacy advoc­ate Asher Wolf in Aus­tralia just over a year ago. The phe­nomenon has swept across the world since then, helped along by the dis­clos­ures of the heroic Edward Snowden.

I hope to see you there. You have to fight for your right (crypto)party — and for your right to pri­vacy! Use it or lose it — and bring your laptop.

Last week I was invited to dis­cuss the con­trol of the media by the spies and the gov­ern­ment appar­atus by the Centre for Media Stud­ies at the Stock­holm School of Eco­nom­ics in Riga. Many thanks to Hans, Anders and the team for invit­ing me, and to Inese Voika , the Chair of Trans­par­ency Inter­na­tional in Latvia, for set­ting the scene so well.

I focused par­tic­u­larly on how journ­al­ists can work with and pro­tect whis­tleblowers:

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About Annie

Annie Machon is a former intelligence officer for MI5, the UK Security Service, who resigned in 1996 to blow the whistle on the spies' incompetence and crimes. Drawing on her varied experiences, she is now a media pundit, author, journalist, political campaigner, and PR consultant. More

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